Valgeir Sigurðsson

Valgeir Sigurðsson's boundless approach to music informs his work as composer, musician, engineer and mixer. In high demand as a producer, Valgeir has spent over a decade cultivating projects by diverse international artists whilst developing his own particular magic brand of recording artistry – now with three solo albums to his name. Valgeir is the founder of the Bedroom Community record label as well as Iceland’s top recording facility Greenhouse Studios where his collaborators include Björk, Feist, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Camille, CocoRosie, The Magic Numbers, múm and many others.

Valgeir's formative years in a small Icelandic village proved fertile soil for his forays into self-taught recording technology; he studied classical guitar and plays keyboards, bass, percussion as well as electronics/programming. In 1991 he earned a Tonmeister degree from London’s SAE Institute. His career flourished in 1998 when fellow countrywoman Björk requested him as engineer and programmer for Lars Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark soundtrack, a monumental project that combined Valgeir's passion for electronic, orchestral and film music. The soundtrack's “I've Seen It All,” Björk's duet with Thom Yorke, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Valgeir's musical relationship as one of Björk's primary studio collaborators from 1998 to 2006 thrived through contributions to her albums Selmasongs, Vespertine, Medúlla, and Drawing Restraint 9.

Valgeir founded record label and collective Bedroom Community in 2006 with Nico Muhly and Ben Frost, later adding Sam Amidon, Daníel Bjarnason, Puzzle Muteson, Paul Corley, Nadia Sirota and James McVinnie to the roster. After years of success in the recording industry, Valgeir debuted his own album Ekvílibríum, which The Fader Magazine heralded as “a singular album, as ornate as it is direct.” In 2009, collective members Valgeir and Muhly co-composed and premiered Scent Opera for New York City's Guggenheim Museum. In 2010, Bedroom Community released an album of Valgeir's documentary soundtrack for Dreamland (Draumalandið). Valgeir then wrote Nebraska for the Chiara Quartet and scored Architecture of Loss by choreographer Stephen Petronio, the latter which was released in September 2012. Valgeir's works are available from Benjamin Britten-founded Faber Music.

In all of his projects, Valgeir bends and blends familiar sounds to expose the new within the known, lending depth to pop and mainstream music through care and an ear for esoteric, eclectic sonic experimentation. His aural oeuvre and collaborative contributions collide organic with synthetic, acoustic with digital, connection with isolation, and domestic with ethereal – resulting in a body of work ripe with emotion, curiosity, and humanity.

What the press says

The music [...] can sound chill and eerie: there’s singing, echoing, rasping, crackling. At times, the piano emits single, spaced-out notes that sound like water dripping resoundingly on ice in a momentary thaw.

“…a staggeringly beautiful collection of heavyweight, noise-inflected classicist compositions….Fascinating and adventurous, we have a welcome foil to the overtly pretty side of modern classical music and a superb body of work in its own right.”

...Sigurðsson appears to bridge the gap between the primarily electronic textures and ambience of his debut and the sweeping orchestral feel of his second album to create a vastly different set up, which intrigues and fascinates in equal measures.

...Architecture of Loss is so dense, subtly varied and even ambiguous that to try and tie it down is an exercise in futility. Best to relax and bask in the numerous moments of touching, and troubling, beauty that run through its 10 mini-suites.

For Architecture Of Loss [Valgeir’s] turned off the computer and gone straight for your heart with strings. The result is, as you can imagine, rather downbeat but delightful in ways that you’d expect from an Icelandic man with such a resume.

Architecture Of Loss is moving, beautiful and thought-provoking. It commands your attention, admiration and respect, transcending the noises in the speakers, becoming something that symbolises loss and grief through the medium of music.

Sigurðsson has created a soundscape that is coherent, timeless, and thrilling…This album is sparse yet deeply layered, foreboding yet hopeful, dense yet melodic. It is, quite simply, beautiful, heartwarming and a masterpiece.

Here, Sigurðsson adopts a restrained approach to the soundtrack to a particularly grave film, and he does so with great lucidity, underlying the content with powerful yet discreet touches. His greatest achievement is to manage to give the music an identity away from the images it was written for.

Sigurðsson’s touch is at its most precise here, crafting an emotional weight that is moving, but not overstated. With such a keen ear for composition and flow, Sigurðsson has created a score that sounds remarkably evocative of the film’s main themes, while still able to stand alone as an album. At the very least, Draumalandið is another brilliant showcase of Bedroom Community’s burgeoning potential.

"Valgeir Sigurðsson is the most welcoming and thoughtful of hosts and, as he leads his companions through various narratives, he orchestrates one of the most exhilarating and perfect records you’ll hear this year."

“Between Monuments” from Valgeir Sigurðsson’s Architecture Of Loss.
Performed live at Parterre, Basel by Valgeir Sigurðsson with Liam Byrne.
Video by Gordon Bell (gordypops.com)

Everything Everywhere All The Time - Trailer

This is a trailer for the Bedroom Community film Everything Everywhere All The Time.
With Sam Amidon, Ben Frost, Nico Muhly and Valgeir Sigurðsson.
Also featuring Nadia Sirota.
Directed by Pierre-Alain Giraud.

Sam Amidon - How Come That Blood (live)

A live performance of Sam Amidon’s How Come That Blood. Footage shot in Brussels on the Bedroom Community’s Whale Watching Tour. Also featured in this piece are Ben Frost, Nico Muhly, Valgeir Sigurðsson.

Shot and edited by Pierre-Alain Giraud and Stuart Rogers.

Whale Watching 2010 Tour Trailer

Sam Amidon, Ben Frost, Nico Muhly and Valgeir Sigurðsson return with this wondrous concert-series through Europe, starting at Berlin’s Admiralspalast on the 18th April and ending in The National Theater in Reykjavík on 16th May. Also featuring Nadia Sirota.